e v i l _ b l e n d e r

For a long time I have been hoping that 'evilblender' could be repository of a mixture of different art projects that I work on.
However, up until now, I haven't liked my own work enough to actually post it online. (the internet trolls can be tough on the ego)

I finally have a piece that I am pleased with, and although it is nothing quite as big and beautiful as I have seen other in other processing created works -- I think this one reflects me at this moment in time quite well.

It doesn't do anything useful... here's how you control it:
move your mouse around to control where the circles are and when you'd like to save the path of the circles, click and hold down the mouse button while you move the mouse around. Simple and trippy :)

Please download and run the macintosh version of the application, or the windows version. (They are both java applications)
I was going to link to the application running in a web page, but for some reason it looks quite terrible running as a web application. (guess I've got to try and understand why)
You can also view the source code, so that you can see how it is made if you'd like.

I hope you like it, please let me know if you do.

Posted by vashremix at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey!
Who's that hiding in the background trying to look interested?!

http://www.makenyc.org/?p=54

Actually - I did learn quite a bit.
Learning how to solder surface mount components... you would not believe how incredibly SMALL those parts are. Not made for fat fingered dudes like me... but somehow I managed to get it to work. Really glad I went.

Posted by vashremix at 09:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that I'm over my TV addiction - I find that I still want to be informed about _some_ of the goings-on in the world without resorting to watching the nightly news. (this is for various reasons - I feel nightly news is too focused on press releases and getting eyeballs with ShOcKiNg StOriEs!)

Anyways - Keeping up with interesting stories involves watching 'Frontline', and you can do this online - no TV needed.

Check out: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/

You can watch the latest programs from there.

Do yourself a favor, watch frontline, listen to NPR, and read Boing Boing. :)
You'll probably need more to read than that... I'll admit I love the service Safari by O'Reilly and to keep up with the Google Videos that teach you useful stuff.

So, have I really given up TV?
Only the TV that Nielson thinks is TV. I'm a fan of the podcast as well.

Posted by vashremix at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/04/15/bind.html

A good primer article on setting up Bind on a LAN. I'm thinking of setting up linux box here in the office to handle this kind of stuff so I can refer to the printers as color.cnycomapny.com rather than 192.168.1.20 etc.

Free DNS hosting service:
http://www.granitecanyon.com/

One other website to watch out for is
http://www.priceprotectr.com/

watches prices for you after you've bought something.

Just reminding myself

Posted by vashremix at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got the link from 43 folders, but want to give credit where it's due. Over on scarletstarstudios there is a post that I feel resonates with me very strongly.
I've been struggling with making music for what seems like years at this point - perhaps because it _has_ been years - yikes - where does time go?!

There are 10 guidelines listed there:
I wanted to list them all here, because I don't want to forget them (for myself!) -- But you should notice that there is no way _I_ could write this comprehensively! :)

1. Quality through quantity. Don't get hung up on making this one piece good -- make ten and one will certainly be pretty good.
2. Do NOT mix generating and editing. When you're making a piece, don't stop and get judgmental half-way through. If it's a piece of crap, get that piece of crap out of your system -- don't try to fix it mid-flow. Finish it, move on.
3. When to judge: After you've completed a piece, look at it and decide what direction you want to go in next. Or if you're selecting pieces for submission to a show, apply your critiquing mind then. Make a piece of art; look at it; make another.
4. Don't be afraid to re-use elements. If each piece has to be unique, then you're going to get hung-up when you create some bit that you like. But if you can re-use bits, then you can keep moving.
5. How to have "lots of ideas": permute. Start anywhere. Once a piece is done, try varying some aspect. Think of all the variables that could have permutations.
6. "Get through your first 50 failures as fast as you can." I don't think that we should be shooting for a place where we no longer make crappy art. A good artist is one who's in motion making lots of art -- you only think they're so much better because they produce so much quantity that their pile of "good art" has also been able to accumulate. For every piece of crap you create, you're one step closer to getting something you really like.
7. Don't even bother "fixing" pieces. Making art shouldn't be a struggle. You're simply "thinking out loud" onto the page, photo-paper, or canvas. If a product seems confused, leave it confused. Make another piece where you contemplate whatever issues you were wrestling with. Try something different. When clarity arrives, it will come in one living piece -- not be Frankensteined together out of a single infinitely re-worked, mangled corpse.
8. Work fast. Creativity is exciting. If you're not judging while you're making, then you can just throw things together as fast as your mind can move. You're smart; if you don't like what you've made, you'll know immediately. You might not know what to do about the problem you perceive... Don't "think", standing there cogitating -- try things. If your hands are in motion, you can be generating new permutations. The one that you want to pick will come out on its own time.
9. Let your level show. Let the world know that despite having years of investment in your art form, you're still a beginner who doesn't know it all. Rather than hide your thought process, let your questions be present in your work. You are a fundamentally more interesting artist if people get to see what it is that you're struggling with, rather than just your final answers. Show your work. Talk about what you still can't understand (unapologetically).
10. Don't hide your failures. If you are only willing to show those perfect pieces that you are aspiring towards, you're never going to display / publish your work. Show everything, the worst of the crap included, and let your ego be humbled -- and goaded to create more.

I think the most important ones to me are the ones that don't let you get down on your output. Sure, I've output tons of crap - but perhaps one day a shiny piece of crap will turn out to be a diamond! --- there's an ugly analogy if I've ever seen one! Especially because -- can you imagine pooping out a diamond - ouch!!

Posted by vashremix at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK - just saw this on Get Lo Fi and now that I've started disassembling toys and playing with electronics more and more, I think I'm ready to start building something like this myself.
I might just follow his suggestion and try out the opto-resistors rather than the pots... but I _do_ like turning knobs though... so we'll see!

Weird Sound Generator:

Schematics for a simple but extremely cool sounding sound generator can be found on www.musicfromouterspace.com website...

via Get Lo Fi

Posted by vashremix at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm finally getting to the point of understanding electronics like I've always wanted to. It's taken quite a few books, and a bit of internet crawling - but I think I might actually be 'getting it'! Which I'm quite excited about. I went to college hoping to be an Electronics Engineering Technology major - but got 'weeded out' of the 'weed out' classes.
It made me think I was rather stupid.
I just figured that they knew best - that it wasn't possible for me to learn something quite so complicated.

Well - F you. You were wrong.

Turns out you just didn't know how to teach me - thank goodness for big bookstores and the internet. Maybe I should put up a list of the books that were helpful. I don't need to know everything about these circuits... I just wanted to understand how they worked - how the signal flowed - what was going on inside those green boards to make them do such cool things.
Now, it's funny - I find that as I learn more about it all - the simpler it seems. But I guess that's what it means to learn something. Some of the magic goes away once you learn how it works. Is that what learning is? Or is it a side effect of it?Is that the way it is with everything?
Seems like it may be.

So I know you can learn by making mistakes... how does that fit in? What about those mistakes?

I know I don't know that yet.

Sort of lost the train of thought on this one. Sorry about that - I should learn to go to sleep when I'm tired instead of writing.

Posted by vashremix at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love that blogs have allowed people to post on the web without having to know too much HTML. However, some of my video-geek friends (which I guess is a strange term, as I only know them through email and postings) who have no trouble with technical things (HTML included!) benefit from the simplicity that blogs give you.
Witness http://www.intelligentassistance.com/blog/ I think Philip Hodgetts has a pretty decent grasp on technical information - I use his 'HUB' application to stay up to date with all that changes with Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, compressor, and tons of DV stuff that I am only now getting up to speed with.
Spending 10 years dealing with the Avid and 3/4" tapes has made trying to learn FCP a little confusing at times --- I find myself actually saying 'It can't POSSIBLY be this simple' -- Often it is. Terribly confusing. :)
Anyways - check out Philip's blog. It's a good read for what's going on in this crazy video world.

Posted by vashremix at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have enjoyed reading 43 Folders off and on ever since I 'discovered' it. (only a few months now) There's an article up there about the 'good' parts of getting things done, and I think he's right on the money.

43 Folders: A Year of Getting Things Done: Part 1, The Good Stuff

In the end, I think it boils down to learning to watch for what a “done” project starts to look like, so you can ask interesting questions at the right time:

43 folders inspired me to check out the book "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. It's funny this book was the first one I'd ever purchased as an audio book from itunes - and in fact might have been the first thing I'd ever purchased for myself at itunes. I'd bought songs I needed for work, and some for my brother's school report - but nothing for me - until one day Jason gave me some iTunes gift certificates.
So I splurged and bought myself an audio book. After listening to it at least twice at this point - I'm still amazed at how much I can still learn from it. It's rather like they used to tell me at church, that the bible could be read and re-read, and you'd always find a 'new' idea in there that you hadn't noticed before. Perhaps it sounds anti-religious to say that I think "Getting Things Done," or GTD as it seems to be referred to, may indeed be some sort of significant book. For me, it has indeed become a sort of bible.
It's really amazing how things can connect themselves in such strange and abstract ways. I was just mentally tracing back in my head how I'd even found out about the book, and it turns out that 43 folders had been my introduction to it. And that Quicksilver had been my introduction to 43 folders... and a LaunchBar update on macupdate had been my link to that! From launching programs quicker on my mac, to getting more tasks done in my life. Not a bad progression! :)

Posted by vashremix at 08:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I've been schooling myself on combustion by discreet using a fantastic book called The Focal Easy Guide to Discreet Combustion. I'm pretty pleased with this book. I mean, it's not always that a book manages to teach you how you can work with the application. Most books seem to be all about "this menu does that". That kind of teaching does me no good at all, frankly.
This one though... real nice. I'm understanding keying now much better than I used to.
Perhaps it helps that I've got a pretty solid understanding of Adobe's After Effects.
I'm a little bit amazed that Combustion seems to be laid out in a way that makes more sense to me. After 4 years of AE - I finally understand "stencil alpha" -- only because I get it in combustion! I like that palettes are available only when you need them, rather than constantly hanging out and getting in the way. Screens are too small anyways. Perhaps all the more reason for 2 monitors. Although with the laptop that can get annoying pretty quick.
If you need to learn combustion - I highly recommend this book.

Posted by vashremix at 01:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

well - time to get this thing back to life. Moved a hard-drive's image over to a new(er) computer - lost some prefs... got to get ecto back working again.

Something will happen soon. I can just feel it.
I'm hoping to spend more time being creative - and less time being frozen. I just picked up a fantastic book called Developing digital short films. It's been a great read so far - and in some ways has made me feel like I'm back in film school. I felt way more creative then. Perhaps it's just the advertising business that bums me out. No knocking JLH - I mean she's cute and all - and this was even fun to cut. But the politics involved... enough already. Shouldn't name names now should I?

So, for giggles I think I'll start posting some of my photoblogs. Starting today. Ouch, I say.

Well - now that's a post that can help get things kicked off now isn't it?
See you soon.

Posted by vashremix at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)